Ride end @ 64,530 (18 miles)

I’ve officially ridden over 100 miles on the R 90/6! Today I was just running errands. Had to take three packages to the post office and return an Amazon purchase at Kohl’s. The return was a total shit show. After that I picked up lunch from our favorite Asian fusion place before coming home.

Bike ran well, temp maxed out at 40° F today. The first start on a cold morning seems tough; I need to ask George if I’m doing anything wrong or could be doing something better.

(FOOTNOTE: George is George Mangicaro, owner of Gridlock Motors, an independent BMW motorcycle repair shop. He is my mentor and has been for a number of years. I worked in the front office of the shop for about three years before I moved away from Northern Virginia and most of the work you’ll read about in this blog took place at his shop, under his expert tutelage and often with his blessings. George is an incredibly important character in the story of my year with the 1976 R 90/6.)

Being slower to accelerate is providing more opportunities to discover assholes on the road. I’m finding all of them, it seems, and there are more of them than I realized when I was riding a modern bike with vastly better acceleration.

The turn signal button baffles me. It’s on the right control unit, operated by the thumb. Press it up for the left turn signal, down for the right. George says to think of it as pressing down on the switch to indicate a right turn mimics countersteering by pressing on the right grip to initiate a right turn. Then the other direction (up) has to be the other indicator (left). Logical and simple, but still baffling. I haven’t hit the starter button (which is right next to the turn signal switch) with the bike running yet.

I think the front suspension needs tweaked. It’s coming back up too fast after a hard bump. I think that’s the rebound damping.

I really need to install the Brown side stand. Almost dropped the bike in the slightly slanted Kohl’s parking lot. The design of the stock side stand—the so-called “ride off” unit—is just abysmal. Unsafe at any speed! The dude who thought this thing up should be dug up from his grave and forced to help Airhead riders pick up their fallen bikes.

Expecting shit weather for the next 10 days to two weeks, so I’m probably done riding for a while. I’ll be looking at heated glove liners, battery-powered ones, in the meantime. I can handle a cold torso, but cold hands and fingers are just dangerous.

Just realized I forgot to check the oil before I got on the road. Whoops!